Australian coroner delivers 'scathing' verdict of police after student's taser death

New South Wales Magistrate Mary Jerram says some officers behaved "out of
control" when Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti was tasered in Sydney
on March 18.

12:41PM GMT 14 Nov 2012

CCTV footage showed Sydney police tasering Mr Curti in the early hours of March 18, after a late-night disturbance at a convenience store. He later died.

Mr Curti's family was in court to hear the coroner's recommendation that five of the 11 police officers involved in the restraining and tasering of Curti should be considered for disciplinary charges.

"What eventuated was a frenzy of officers, most of them very junior and inexperienced, half of whom did not even know what Roberto was suspected of having done as they joined in the chase and behaving out of control," she said.

The New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione accepted the findings: "We live with what the coroner has given us, we will go forward, we will not be shying away from what has to be done and clearly there is much work before us."